This invention concerns a method for the treatment of waste water using the reaction product of a polyetheramine and a multifunctional epoxide formed in situ to cause flocculation to thereby break a water/oil emulsion.
The use of polyamines to treat industrial laundry waste-water is known. It is believed that the positive charge on the polymer interacts with the negative charge on the waste-water emulsion droplets causing destabilization. This causes the emulsion to break so that the oil phase can be removed by dissolved air flotation (DAF) or chemical precipitation (CP).
Polyamines are typically prepared by reacting primary and secondary amines with epichlorohydrin. Use of secondary amines results in quaterization so the charge density can be controlled by the ratio of primary to secondary amine.